23 hurt as quake hits Japan

At least 23 people were injured and there were reports of fires, landslides and rockfalls, police in Iwate and Miyagi, the areas hardest hit by the quake, said in statements carried by local media.

A nuclear reactor in the Pacific seaside town of Onagawa, near the epicentre, was automatically shut down but there were no reports of damage, and other reactors were operating normally, the National Police Agency said.

The Meteorological Agency said the quake occurred at 6.24pm (7.24pm AEST) and its focus was about 71 kilometres deep, with the epicentre about 20 kilometres off the Pacific coast of Miyagi.

Six people were temporarily trapped inside two halted lifts in Sendai, a major city in Miyagi prefecture, about 300 kilometres north of the capital, the police agency said. ");document.write("

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The government immediately set up an emergency headquarters to deal with the quake which, however, did not appear to have resulted in a major disaster.

"Because it was rather deep, we have determined there is no risk of tsunami (tidal waves)," Noritake Nishibe, head of the agency's earthquake monitoring section, told reporters as minor aftershocks continued.

Telephone lines to local authorities, emergency services and population in quake-affected areas remained jammed well into the night.

Seven people were injured in landslides in Iwate prefecture to the north of Miyagi, and an elderly woman was hurt in a fire in Miyagi, Kyodo News Agency said, citing local police.

"I'm on the sixth floor of the city hall building. I have never experienced such a big quake in recent years," Hiromi Iwamoto, general affairs chief at Morioka city office told Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) shortly after the quake.

Television pictures broadcast by NHK showed a camera position overlooking Morioka, the main city of Iwate, shaking violently and footage from an NHK helicopter showed at least one house on fire in Sendai.

Bullet train services in northern Japan were halted, and all train services around Sendai and Morioka were stopped, East Japan Railway spokesman Yoshihiro Nakamura said.

The main runway at Tokyo's Narita airport was closed for 30 minutes while officials checked for damage but none was found so flights resumed as normal, airport official Rumiko Oshi said.

Haneda airport for domestic services and Sendai airport were also temporarily closed, but reopened after about half an hour.

Expressways and other toll roads near the quake region were also closed, NHK said.

Japan is regularly hit by earthquakes. Its Pacific coastal shelf is regarded as highly prone to quakes with the Pacific plate and the Philippine plate rubbing against each other.

"We assume that the earthquake occurred due to the sliding down of the Pacific plate," Nishibe said.

Japan's vulnerability to quakes was confirmed in 1995 when a tremor measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale killed 6400 people, injured 40,000 and destroyed 248,000 buildings in and around the western port of Kobe.